Géger Melinda: Változó Világ-Képek • Nemzetközi Kiállítás, 2004

Hungarian artists emphasise various perspectives of history as a myth and personal life experiences. Interesting works touch upon the deformities of the subsequent re-writing of the past, private life problems, where future turns into collective impersonalisation or a mythicised world of emotions. The exhibition displays the stressful presence of scepticism, ironic dubiosity and the younger generation's disbelief in the new vistas of our civilisation. The Estonian — mainly photographic — material grabs a number of links to the topic of the exhibition. These works powerfully reflect the suffered past and the change of political systems, an important historic event that crucially defined the framework of personal life. Longing for freedom, the difference between ways of life, the discovery of the secrets of the past and of nature, alloyed with sacrality at times, are presented in very interesting, often distressing, dramatic pieces. The Swedish artists' primary concern is the challenges of the new millennium. Very definite, marked pieces evoke the migration, the movement of labour, the life of those excluded by the new borders of Europe, the obvious discrepancies between nature and modern civilisation. Conceptual in character, puritan in techniques, the Swedish works exercise their effect through their intellectual depth. The material of the exhibition was overseen by an international jury committee, which awarded the most interesting and relevant works with eight prizes. Those awarded are Vallo Kalamees and Peter Linnap from Valga Estonia, Patrícia Baktay, Erzsébet Lieber and Péter Jónás from со. Somogy Hungary, Imola S.R.Csillag from Harghita Romania, Margaréta Klingberg and Nina Swenson from Västernorrland Sweden. Dr Melinda Géger art historian